New To Chronic Lyme - How to Treat Lyme Related Hearing Problems?

Coyotesdawn

I was diagnosed with chronic lyme just yesterday after visiting a lyme literate doctor. Still have to review the 15 or so blood tests they did there, but they were confident enough due to my symptoms and where I was at the time I may have gotten the infection to put me on antibiotics.

Anyway, so I believe I was infected sometime in April or May of 2015 while walking in the woods or swimming in streams around Philadelphia. It started out as a migraine (never had migraines before), trigeminal nerve irritation, and TMJ symtpoms; no flu or rash stuff. I also had some hearing loss, which at the time I attributed solely to loud noise exposure.

Starting around August 2015 I developed both (chronic and remitting) basilar and otic migraines, thyroid dysfunction, never-ending depression and foggy feelings, visual processing glitches and dissociating from visual world, and an extreme sensitivity and vulnerability to loud noises. I also had multiple inner ear problems including transient vertigo and dizziness spells, tinnitus, hyperacusis, eustachian tube dysfunction, and fluctuating hearing losses 24/7. More recently I have suffered from TMJ symtpoms again, peripheral circulation issues, tight face and neck muscles.

The symptom that has concerned me the most is the hearing loss. Originally my hearing losses were attributed to migraines; i.e. that a vasospasm in the inner ear would result in multiple episodes of tiny sudden hearing losses, which did or did not recover. These migraine attacks in my ears were set off by harmless loud noises, sudden changes in middle ear pressure, moving my body in certain ways, straining or doing something that increased inter-cranial pressure, swallowing, coughing, sneezing, and even laughing or crying or taking a deep breath.

Now with lyme in the mix of things who knows what is really going on; all that I know is that I am losing both my high and very low frequencies because of this disease, and that it is getting worse. I still have normal hearing, but it's starting to dip into mild hearing loss.

I am very scared of antibiotic therapy because of the potential for Herx reactions and being poisoned by dying lyme toxins. If the lyme, for instance, is in my inner ear, I am worried that such a release of toxins could have me go deaf or take out a significant portion of my hearing. Therefore I am really stumped to figure out what to do to avoid this type of reaction, but still to get rid of my lyme disease.

Does anyone have any suggestions for alternative therapies to antibiotics? Such as herbal antibiotics, things I can do for muscle relaxation, ozone inhalation? I may want to start there first. Also, again, if anyone has any information about how to treat lyme-related hearing loss, that will also be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much for the help and taking the time to read this